Control and management of pests has proven challenging, costly, illusive, and frequently ineffective. Pests of concern to dairy herdsman include (i) not only the conventional classes of arthropods and related classes and orders known as muscoid and nonmuscoid flies, but also (ii) arachnids, a class of mainly terrestrial arthropods comprising spiders, scorpions, mites, ticks, and the like, (iii) ectoparasites, which are parasites living on the surface of an animal, (iv) endoparasites, parasites living within an animal, and (v) pathogens, viruses, bacteria, spores and similar agents of disease.
Left uncontrolled, pests have significant impact on the economics of animal production. The dairy cattle industry has been estimated to produce $38 billion annually in the United States. Uncontrolled flies, for example, may irritate cows so severely that milk production suffers; disease pathogens maybe transmitted; enteric (intestinal) diseases among humans associated with cow herds may increase; and a variety of regulatory rules and regulations may be violated.
Exemplary solutions for solving problems arising from pests among dairy herds were provided by the inventor named in this document in connection with U.S. Pat. No. 6,230,660 B2 issued May 15, 2001; U.S. Pat. No. 6,651,589 B2 issued Nov. 25, 2003; U.S. Pat. No. 6,779,489 B2 issued Aug. 24, 2004; and U.S. Pat. No. 7,194,980 B2, issued Mar. 27, 2007 (collectively, “Prior Patents”).
The apparatus, systems and methods of the Prior Patents have achieved the level of pest control demanded by industry operators. They provide substantially automated control of pest populations on dairy cattle to an extent not possible before the evolution of varying solutions provided in the Prior Patents. Indeed, the apparatus, systems and methods of the Prior Patents have become the most widely used pest control systems for large dairy herds in the United States. The apparatus of the Prior Patents are capable of consistently applying a moderately thick oil-based carrier containing at least one chemical (for example, an insecticide) and water, ingredients that may be finely misted onto cattle during operation, while allowing cattle to return to their pens after milking.
Industry operators, however, particularly those with large dairy herds, expressed a desire and need to be able to apply ingredients having significantly thicker oil-based carriers, with higher viscosities, containing one or more insecticides that on application to an animal such as a cow would neither be absorbed into the hair of the cow, nor dispersed on discharge of an application from a sprayer.
Another capability desired by dairy industry operators included the capability to increase the volume of ingredients applied during an individual application of ingredients on an animal. Certain combinations of ingredients combined within short periods of time during which the application was applied could, in some instances, result in sprays that were too fine. The direction of such fine sprays following emission from a sprayer could be altered by air currents occurring either inside or outside of a building in which the applications were applied to an animal (in this document, “dispersal” and/or “misting”). To overcome such problems, an operator might be required to apply more ingredients than would otherwise be needed for a particular objective in a pest control management plan, thus increasing costs of operation. In addition, the effectiveness of an application might decrease or degrade the longer the time lapse between an earlier and a subsequent application.
Misting chemicals and/or oils may create a number of problems for both a dairy and animals. Misting chemicals and/or oils blown off target may create undesirably extensive and thick coatings of oil that may coat people, buildings, and surrounding structures and areas. Dairymen who use oil-based chalk to mark and identify animals are hindered if an animal's hide is excessively oily. The most desirable location for installing a pest control system for cattle is a location close to the entry of cattle into a barn or stall where cattle will be milked. However, any misting oil containing insecticides could drift and contact milking equipment and milking personnel. In addition, the comparatively small orifice of sprayer nozzles require inclusion of fine mesh filters that clog, requiring frequent servicing and cleaning if misting is excessive.
Accordingly, it seemed desirable to develop a pest control system that would be capable of combining ingredients such as water, oil, and chemicals that tend to be immiscible, but combining them in such a way that their properties are unaltered as a result of the combining process, and that also would reduce dispersal and excess use of ingredients during a discharge or application of the ingredients on an animal.
However, a variety of problems presented obstacles to design and development of such a system.
Heating the chemicals and/or oil prior to use proved unsuccessful in overcoming the problems caused by misting.
Trying to force high viscosity oils through a sprayer system proved ineffective. High internal pressures within tubing, hoses and pumps associated with a spraying system averaged 80-350 pounds per square inch (“psi”), creating premature wear and fatigue in sprayer components.
Other problems arose due to the physical and chemical properties of the ingredients themselves. For example, the thicker the oil, the faster it separates. Adding chemical emulsifiers to the combined water and oil proved ineffective due to the large volumes of water used on dairy cattle: large amounts of water remove oil and chemicals from an animal. Chemical emulsifying agents are affected by atmospheric moisture which may be drawn into, and dilute, the chemicals, and result in oxidization.
Other problems also became apparent. Injecting oil and water together at the tip of a nozzle on a sprayer is ineffective because injection rates vary significantly. A thick oil will alter injection pressure from 8,000 psi to approximately 100 psi during a temperature range variation from 40 to 110 degrees Fahrenheit, making installation and operation of pumps and associated equipment not only expensive, but also complicated and dangerous to perform maintenance on.
Injecting oil into lines containing water without agitating and recirculating the ingredients also proved ineffective. Oil separates and floats to higher levels of mixed ingredients. As a consequence, during spraying the oil coagulates, causing uneven discharges from the sprayer on the animal.
As discussed in the Prior Patents, many other techniques for controlling pests on cattle have proven only marginal in achieving control of flies for long periods of time, including fogging; feeding cows oral larvicide; applying residual pesticides on the underside of shaders; larvicide spraying; back rubbers; and ear tags or other apparatus attachable to parts of an animal's body containing a liquid chemical or pesticide dispensable on an animal.
Accordingly, it would be of considerable advantage to provide a new and useful apparatus, method and system for micro layering pest control applications of combined ingredients on an animal capable of achieving effective pest control using generally immiscible ingredients whose properties would not change during the process of combining the ingredients, and resulting in reduced dispersal and reduced use of comparatively expensive ingredients during application of the ingredients on an animal's body.